Integrating Ecosystem Services Valuation into Land Use Planning: Case of the Ukrainian Agricultural Landscapes

Ihor Soloviy,Roman Kuryltsiv,Taras Kuleshnyk,Nadiia Kryshenyk,Józef Hernik

doi:10.3390/f12111465

Abstract

Modern agricultural landscapes produce multiple ecosystem services. Ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes have social, economic, and environmental value—providing a wide array of benefits to society. Absence of scientifically based and practically tested methodologies of identification, mapping, and evaluation of ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes hamper integration of its values in the current system of land use planning. The value of ecosystem services is calculated for the case study territory located within the administrative borders of Kolomak Territorial Community in Bohodukhiv district, Kharkiv region (Ukraine). The highest estimated value among non-market ecosystem services is carbon storage service, and among market services—food production. The baseline scenario of land use (business as usual) is compared with two alternative scenarios (Scenario 1. Land reclamation scenario; Scenario 2. Land protection and bioenergy production scenario). Designing of an integrated production system in the forest agro-landscape, which combines multiple ecosystem services, allows us to attain maximum results in terms of value. Amelioration of agricultural landscape through establishing a system of protective forest shelterbelts allows society to increase the total value of ecosystem services, and this is why it should be better integrated into land use planning and land management.

Highlights

Ecosystem services are defined as conditions and processes through which natural ecosystems and the species that make them up sustain and fulfill human life [1]
While informally judging ecosystem services can be useful in some situations, for its true potential as a tool for increasing long term sustainability they must be integrated into decision making in a systemic way [2]
We considered and calculated the value of ecosystem services for two alternative scenarios:

Summary

Introduction

Ecosystem services are defined as conditions and processes through which natural ecosystems and the species that make them up sustain and fulfill human life [1]. While informally judging ecosystem services can be useful in some situations, for its true potential as a tool for increasing long term sustainability they must be integrated into decision making in a systemic way [2]. The biophysical models being used to quantify services from ecosystem, economic, and cultural models can be used to place value on the services—this information is fed to institutions which influence decisions through incentive provisions that provide feedback to the ecosystem [4]. Ecosystem services can be assessed from different perspectives. The first perspective determines the capacity of that ecosystem asset to produce ecosystem services and refers to the area of the land covered by an environmental asset (such as woodland). The second approach is to measure ecosystem assets in terms of expected ecosystem service flows

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